... cogitating the possibilities by the sound of my own keystrokes ...

January 27, 2007

I went for an early morning stroll in Old Town Scottsdale. I've been sick for the past couple of days and just needed to get out of the house. I got there at about 8am and hung around for a couple of hours. There was no one there but me and the occasional utility workman and city cleaning crew.

January 25, 2007

I've been a telemetry nurse for six and a half years. For five of them, I have been charge.

I have probably been present for, say, 50 true full arrests.

I'd say I've seen twenty folks die. Oddly, I am cool with this success rate given the fact that most of the patients I code would probably have elected to sign the "DNR" paperwork had they known what a code blue really looks like.

Twenty deaths. At least.

I have spoken to countless nurses who tell me stories about how they had felt the presence of the departed. One nurse said that she felt the "rush of a spirit as it passed through her body." Another spoke of a feeling that there was something "above their heads, a presence watching in neither benevolence nor malevolence as we prepared the body." Another spoke of that feeling that someone was in the room with her.

I have not had any such experiences.

Truly, I feel a certain disappointment. For the past several years, after a death, I would offer to be the one to prepare the body and clean the room. I offer to do this by myself, so that everyone else can catch up on their work. So I'd clean them up, position the body, remove medical equipment.

I look around the room, wondering if I can perceive absolutely anything different. As I walk about the room, I look out for those cold spots I keep seeing in the movies.

Nothing.

One time, the cell phone rang. I picked it up and answered it, hoping, fruitlessly, that it would be a ghostly throaty gravelly voice on the other end, with some sagely advice, like "be good" or "you were a good nurse" or "don't take that flight to Virginia next month, it will go down in flames." Hell, I'd take "buy oil" or "sell tech."

But nothing. No voices. No coldness. No presence. No rushing of air.

In the end, maybe I just don't present a good target for new members of the celestial plane. Maybe I'm simply too pessimistic, too empirical, or not spiritual enough, for them to make the connection.

Maybe it's the fact that, in almost every code, a part of me wishes for death. I wish for and long for an end to what I think can be the most brutally savage and inhumane moments of our lives.

Maybe they've lost their ability to speak after all those ribs I've broken, snapped like brittle stale breadsticks. Maybe they remember the cold steel of the laryngoscope blade, raking up and down their throats during intubation.

I've come into the room, when family have come by to pay their respects. I'm always hearing something like, "I can feel her/him right here in this room, I can tell he/she is listening to us." And I'll look about with some sort of anticipation.

Nothing.

Just once, I'd like to feel someone's presence. I'd like to wish them well. I'd like to talk to them about their family, if there was anything I could tell them. I'd like to ask what it's like wafting about -- do they feel the presence of their corporeal bodies? Are there other dead folks running around right then? Any bright light in the background? That sort of mundane business.

More than anything, I find myself yearning for a chance to apologize. Just to say "sorry" for messing up death, the dying process, so badly.

And to carry my apology, to the other 19 folks up there, that never gave me the opportunity.

January 23, 2007

When I lived in Virginia, I was seeing someone who lived in Washington DC, and we would often each Chinese food in a nearby restaurant. Since we were both Asian, we were often taken upstairs, where only Asians were ever served, and were handed menu's written totally in Chinese.

I would usually allow the other person to make my order (it was always the same anyway -- mussels in brown sauce and an order of stir fryed japanese eggplant in garlic and hoisin sauce). But I always wondered what the literal translations were, and was usually told, "there is no real English translation."

So I was reading this blog (from digg), and it just made me laugh. Laugh hard enough to make snorting sounds. It offers up "Cowboy Leg," "Cowboy Meat," and "Large Intestine Pots."

January 21, 2007

Last night, before I walked into the hospital, I took a few shots from the top of the parking deck, as the sun was setting. I thought the rain would be over, but this morning it was raining again. Oh well.

January 20, 2007

It's been raining for three days. Just a slow cold constant rain. I'm surprised we aren't flooding more but I guess it's coming down slow enough for the ground to soak it in. I'm anticipating a lot of blooming flora in the next month or so.

I hate it when it rains this much. What used to be something I would hear from "older people" that, back in my earlier days, seemed implausable has been a three day ordeal: the wet cold weather makes my bones ache. Espeically my knees. Whenever I have to walk up or down the stairs to my apartment, I hear the lound stretching and crunching. Even when I use the eliptical machines, I still had to go up the stairs one at a time.

Indocin helps the discomfort. It's an NSAID so there are all the usual warningsa about taking it. But I have another problem with it. Because it works Really Really REALLY good at releiving my joint ache, but... it makes me completely confused and incoherent.

The last time I took a dose of Indocin before sleep, when I awoke, my room mate walked up to me and asked, "You have any idea what happened here earlier today?"

I would look around, and find open boxes of cereal, bags of chips, and several left-over remnants.

According to my room mate, I woke up in the middle of the day and decided I wanted to eat cookies. We have those really easy ones where you just break them off into squares.

My room mate leaves me in the kitchen, but returs a few minutes later. I'm looking at the cookies, and they are not cooking. Roommie calmly reminds me that the oven is not on.

January 19, 2007

I finally had a day to really get acquainted to my new camera. I had been using the movie function but hadn't had any luck in transferring the movies to my computer. When I finally figured out how to play them on my computer, I found out it had sound (didn't know that).

So I decided you just had to see it for yourself.

I tried to upload to YouTube, but I guess I have an account and for the life of me, I can not remember the ID, the Password, or the associated email address. So I went with Google video.

January 15, 2007

January 14, 2007

Our fish died a few months ago, and we were hesitant to get new ones. We just got really attached to those fish, and we actually went through a period of mourning.

But there be fish here now. We got two orange fantails and one algae eater. My room mate has been resistant to naming them, but for me, the big one is Agador, and the little one is Spartacus.

We got a bit of a scare with one of our kitties, Boykitty. He had apparently broken a tooth, and although he wasn't in any pain, even though it was three in the morning and even though roomie and I were fighting about something, as soon as it was something about the kitty, we decided, right then and there, to hop in the car and go looking at Veterinary Hospitals. None were open, we would just sit in the car in the empty lot and look at the building, and try to figure out how nice they were to kitties based on their curb appeal.

Yes, when it comes to kitties and fish, we get very dramatic at times.

January 11, 2007

I love Boston Legal. No, I don't like it more than I like, say, Battlestar Galactica, or any of the versions of Star Trek. But I love the show nonetheless.

I really like the way the friendship between Denny Crane (played by William Shatner) and Allan Shore (played by James Spader) has developed. There aren't many shows that are willing to explore the intimate and yet non-sexual friendship that can occur between two men. I like the way they can openly communicate about how much they care for one another. Including all of the Treks and Battlestars, the last five minutes of Boston Legal, when Crane and Shore share a few minutes on the balcony, are easily the best minutes on television.

I also find it very interesting how mature the actors are. All of the real acting is done by seasoned actors that have been in the business for decades, and their experience and expertise far outshines their age. There are a few of the ubiquitously required Beautiful Bodies, but they are so obviously spliced into the show strictly for the blatant sex scenes. At times, you can tell that the directors rang a bell in the studio, and a voice would come over the loudspeaker, "we must now insert 5 minutes of meaningless sex into the show, all Beautiful Bodies please report to the sound stage for your ubiquitously required sex scene."

But... getting back to Star Trek... (ahem...)

I find it interesting that there are a lot of Trek characters that have found a home on this show: